A little bit of history:
Flash, as a technology, started out rather simple. You could play movies in a browser using very little bandwidth for a good quality, which was impressive at the time, but it didn't do much other than play the movie. Flash authors requested that Macromedia give them basic control over their movie, such as pausing, stopping, rewinding, and fast forwarding. Macromedia obliged, and gave Flash authors ActionScript, a way of scripting flash movies to do things like start and stop play back. Of course, Flash authors found ways of doing more with ActionScript than Macromedia intended. Buttons were being used for interactive movies instead of just controlling the movie itself. Unfortunately, these hacks were messy and didn't always work right or work elegantly. Macromedia, once again at the request of the Flash authors, added more funcitonality to ActionScript, allowing authors to do even more with ActionScript. Once they reached the limits of ActionScript again, even more features were added by Macromedia, and so on. Fast forward to today, where ActionScript, while still just for scripting Flash movies, more closely resembles a full programming language. Flash movies are now more interactive than ever, with movies, games, and now Flash based web applications.
Overview and Features
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